Original article
Influence of Work Role and Perceptions of Climate on Faculty Organizational Commitment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2009.11.001Get rights and content

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine how organizational commitment is influenced by organizational climate and nurse faculty work role in departments/colleges of nursing. The research was based on Meyer and Allen's Multidimensional Model of Organizational Commitment. The sample was comprised of full-time tenure track, doctorally prepared nurse faculty. Descriptive analyses were used to summarize institutional and nursing program data. ANOVA and t-tests were performed to determine differences between faculty information and study variables. A significant difference was found between teaching work role, and role ambiguity, role conflict and organizational climate. Pearson correlation analyses examined relationships between nurse faculty work role balance, role ambiguity, role conflict, and affective, continuance, and normative organizational commitment. A moderately strong negative relationship was present between role ambiguity and role conflict, and affective and continuance organizational commitment. Significant relationships were observed between subscales of organizational climate and role ambiguity and role conflict. The study's findings offer interesting insights into the dynamic relationships between organizational commitment and climate, work role balance, role ambiguity, and role conflict.

Section snippets

Background and Theoretical Framework

Faculty roles evolved over time as societal demands varied, resulting in new and different role expectations. The emerging academic environment created a more multifaceted faculty role. The faculty role increased in complexity as colleges and universities also became more complex organizations. Postsecondary institutional policies varied significantly with instructional responsibilities performed in some cases by nonfaculty, and some faculty were not assigned teaching duties (Zimbler, 1994).

Methods

The design of this nonexperimental, descriptive study was guided by the Meyer and Allen's MMOC (1993). Variables were operationalized to capture the perceptions of nurse faculty in a representative sample of schools of nursing in public and private Carnegie Doctoral/Research Universities-Extensive across the United States. Organizational commitment's affective, continuance, and normative states were measured by the total subscale scores of the Affective, Continuance, and Normative Commitment

Data Collection

Data were collected using a survey approach. School of nursing participation was invited from all institutions classified as Doctoral/Research Universities-Extensive by the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education. Full-time, tenure-track, doctorally prepared nurse faculty employed in these public and private, not-for-profit universities with accredited undergraduate and graduate programs in nursing were invited via e-mail to participate. Nursing program inclusion in the final

Findings

Forty-five (55%) of the 81 schools of nursing contacted agreed to participate. Schools were widely dispersed across 26 states throughout the United States representing the northeast (9, 20%), southeast (16, 35.6%), midwest (11, 24.4%), northwest (4, 8.9%), and southwest (5, 11.1%). The university size of the participating schools ranged from 3,250 to 58,000 students with a mean of 24,017 students. Nursing schools offered a range of three to seven (M = 4.76) programs, with student enrollment

Research Findings

Pearson correlation procedures were used to examine the relationships between role ambiguity, role conflict, work role balance, organizational climate, and organizational commitment in nurse faculty. Table 1 presents the matrix of statistically significant (P ≥ .05) correlations between role ambiguity, role conflict, affective commitment, continuance commitment, and the subscales of the OCDQ-HE-P: consideration, intimacy, disengagement, and production emphasis. A moderately strong negative,

Conclusions and Implications

Variations in organizational commitment and climate, role ambiguity, and role conflict found in this research support the relationships proposed in Meyer and Allen's MMOC that guided this study. Findings demonstrated that as role ambiguity and role conflict increased, all dimensions of organizational commitment were influenced negatively. Organizational commitment was diminished when role ambiguity and role conflict were experienced by nurse faculty. In addition, study findings supported those

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